Donnie Douglas
Columnist
I was at Food Lion last week and I purchased a chicken breast wrapped in bacon that is part of my dinner roto. After I went through the check-out line, I did something I used to never do, which was to scroll quickly through the receipt to see if there were any mistakes made that were not to my advantage and therefore needed the attention of the cashier.
I noticed that I had been charged $12.99 for the chicken breast, which will provide the protein for three meals, but my recollection was that it usually cost about half that, so I gave it a quick glance and saw 5.07 on a white sticker. Busted, I thought to myself, and then alerted the cashier. She quickly separated me and my smirk by telling me that was the expiration date.
It is the only time in my life that I wish I had been wearing N.C. State attire, not UNC’s.
The rising cost of food and, well, everything else, has me paying attention now when making a purchase, something I rarely did until I was on a fixed income. As an example, I have seldom in the past driven past a convenience store while the needle was pointing toward the “E” in search of less-expensive gasoline, but that is now part of the protocol when I fill up the tank. I almost ran out of gasoline recently while returning from Chapel Hill in a quest for a better deal than $3.99.
There are many indicators of my sexagenarian status, several of which were itemized in last week’s column, but another is this: I remember as a young teen riding a bicycle to Biggs Park Shopping Center with $2 in my pocket, which was enough to get two hot dogs all the way, french fries and a coke at Eckerd’s and leave about 60 cents to play 9-ball at Footsies’ pool hall all day. Now it helps some that a game of pool was just 10 cents and the loser paid, and I seldom lost, but the point is made. The cost of existing has gone way up.
Now in fairness, I was only making about $2 an hour at the time while working on the maintenance crew at Pinecrest Country Club, where I am currently employed, adding a bit of symmetry to my life. But now I am pulling in almost five times my early 1970s’ wage, plus I can give myself a raise anytime I want by playing free golf. Who says a college education does not pay?
I am not trying today to make a political point, although you are free to curse whomever over the truth that inflation today is the highest it has been since before about 100 million Americans were born. The reality is that this out-of-control inflation is hurting a lot of Americans, including the one I am most concerned about, which is me.
My goal when I was nudged into retirement was not to dip into my nest egg to meet the daily cost of staying alive, which includes chicken and gasoline, and so far, so good. The idea being, I do not really know how long I am going to live, and since I am childless the chore of providing my care will most likely fall upon someone paid to do so.
The only way to avoid this would be to die young, and that date has expired, so now the option is only to die sooner than later. That is still not in my plans.
I have watched not only as the cost of living has gone up but as the value of my nest egg has gone down. It is not yet suspenseful, but I really do not want those lines to cross, so my fingers are crossed that inflation abates and that my portfolio reverses its direction.
Although it is a bit late to be ad-libbing, I am considering taking steps to cut expenses, but there isn’t a lot of fat left since that was my first order of business when I became a former editor.
I could start by not driving to work and saving that gas. I no longer own that Schwinn, but the pro shop is only 767 steps away.
Donnie Douglas is the former editor of The Robesobnian. He can be reached via email at [email protected].